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Weakness (CWE)

CWE-1300: Improper Protection of Physical Side Channels

Base

The device does not contain sufficient protection
mechanisms to prevent physical side channels from exposing
sensitive information due to patterns in physically observable
phenomena such as variations in power consumption,
electromagnetic emissions (EME), or acoustic emissions.

More detail

Physical side channels have been well-studied for
decades in the context of breaking implementations of
cryptographic algorithms or other attacks against security
features. These side channels may be easily observed by an
adversary with physical access to the device, or using a
tool that is in close proximity. If the adversary can
monitor hardware operation and correlate its data processing
with power, EME, and acoustic measurements, the adversary
might be able to recover of secret keys and data.

How to prevent it (2 mitigations)

  1. Architecture and Design

    Apply blinding or masking techniques to implementations of cryptographic algorithms.

  2. Implementation

    Add shielding or tamper-resistant protections to the device to increase the difficulty of obtaining measurements of the side-channel.

Source: MITRE CWE-1300

All Critical High Medium Low Exploited only Public exploit

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